Four years later we get the inevitable sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, which is sadly an utterly mediocre, action movie that is willfully stupid and completely devoid of internal logic in its narrative structure. I don’t want to give away any major plot points or spoil the OMG moment in the movie so I will keep my examination as generic as possible.
Is the movie an action packed, thrill ride? Yes. Check your brain at the door, and you should be fine.
Is the movie good and does it keeps the essence of Gene Roddenberry’s dream alive?
No.
Star Trek Into Darkness is a bad movie that is painfully dumb and pessimistic. Life-long Star Trek fans are probably burning Abrams/Orci/Kurtzman/Lindelof in effigy. To be sure there are plenty of great, eye-popping, mind-blowing scenes involving big explosions, spacedives, and starships crashing, that are wonderfully shot and edited, but action set pieces cannot save a movie that is built on an objectively bad and idiotic script.
For example:
Kirk violates the Prime Directive and subsequently is busted down to first officer in the opening moments of the movie and Pike is given back command of the Enterprise. Huh?
John Harrison the villain of the story (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) is a genetic superman who is being forced by the head of Starfleet (Peter Weller) to design weapons, ships and commit acts of terrorism. Huh?
A suicide bomber blows up an archive in London, which turns out to be a secret base for black ops guys Section 31. Huh?
The bombing triggers a meeting of important Starfleet personnel. Prompting that meeting was the true purpose of the attack, and a ship piloted by the ‘mysterious’ John Harrison destroys the meeting room. Pike is killed in the attack, and Kirk is giving back command of the Enterprise (again) and sets out along with the rest of his crew to track down and kill Harrison. Huh?
John Harrison is able to beam himself from Earth to the Klingon homeworld Qo’noS, (which apparently has no sensor defense system) using a personal hyperwarp transporter device. The device can be carried in your hands, and it can beam you sixteen light years. Huh?!?
The list goes on, but I am trying to keep the spoilers down to minimum. Needless to say, the movie is littered with violations of internal logic and consistency. The whole thing craps out pretty fast and all that is left is a sense that Abrams/Orci/Kurtzman/Lindelof simply didn’t care. They had action set pieces and a clumsy, unsatisfying ending that they wanted and pesky little things like logical impediments weren’t going to get in their way.
Ironically, the cast is the biggest strength of the movie, but sadly they are so completely wasted, it’s almost criminal. In particular, the character of John Harrison in the hands of Cumberbatch could have been an iconic performance, but instead the crappy script hamstrings him and all he can do is growl bad lines, punch guys into the ground, jump about, and look menacing. Such a colossal waste and a missed opportunity.
Is Star Trek Into Darkness the worst film in the franchise? No. The Final Frontier or Insurrection or Nemesis are far worse than STID. That being said, they are all pretty bad movies - Star Trek Into Darkness included – and I would rather have a root canal done by a pissed off Klingon dentist than be forced to rewatch any of them. At its best, Star Trek is about the exploration of the human condition, something not remotely on display in either of J.J. Abrams’s films.
Reportedly, Star Trek Into Darkness had a budget of a $190 million. That accounts for all the gee-whiz special effects … but what happened to the script? Star Trek Into Darkness is not the death knell for the franchise. But Abrams’ new Trek is clearly short on the hope and the optimism of Rodenberry’s vision.
According to Box Office Mojo, opening weekend was pretty weak for STID, it made $86.7 million in four days, impressive numbers to be sure, but well short of the $100 million Paramount executives were expecting. Some of that probably has to do with the state of the economy and the price of movie tickets, and worse yet, after a four-year wait for the sequel, the movie going audience might not be interested in Kirk and company.
Perhaps the most ironic movie trivia that comes to mind when I think about the new Trek vs. the real Trek is that despite its limited budget, and being over thirty years old, Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan is still the best movie in the franchise.
Go figure…
